Year: 2013

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul made misleading or exaggerated claims in their responses to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. Rubio claimed that the federal health care law was causing people to lose “the health insurance they were happy with,” but that glosses over … More

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – The United States could prevent up to half a million deaths over the next decade if Americans cut their salt intake to within national guidelines, according to a new study. That finding – which comes the week New York City announced success toward its goals of cutting salt levels by one-quarter by 2014 – is based on computer simulations using data from various studies on the effects of extra sodium on blood pressure and heart risks. The Institute of Medicine recommends most healthy people get 1,500 milligrams (mg) of sodium per day, with an upper limit of 2,300 mg. …

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – More U.S. women are taking the “morning-after” pill, but generally just once, according to the government’s first report on how the emergency contraception drug has been used since regulators eased access to it in 2006. About 11 percent of sexually active women, or 5.8 million, used the pill between 2006 and 2010, compared to about 4 percent in 2002, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in its report released on Thursday. …

PARIS (AP) — The price, smell and color should have been clear tipoffs something was wrong with shipments of horsemeat that were fraudulently labeled as beef, French authorities said Thursday. The economy minister pinned the bulk of the blame on a French wholesaler at the heart of the growing scandal in Europe.

(Reuters) – Cardinal Health Inc plans to buy direct-to-home medical supply distributor AssuraMed from private equity group Clayton Dubilier & Rice for about $2.07 billion, the U.S. drug wholesaler said on Thursday. The acquisition will give Cardinal access to a new segment of the healthcare market that it believes will grow with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, which is more commonly known as Obamacare. Cardinal Health plans to finance the deal with $1.3 billion in new senior unsecured notes. …

PARIS (AP) — A French minister says the French meat wholesaler Spanghero is to blame for fraudulently labeling horsemeat as beef.